Helen Mirren is broadway royalty

After wowing on London's West End, and winning an Olivier to add to her Academy Award for playing Queen Elizabeth II, Helen Mirren dons the crown once again to bring The Audience to Broadway. She's now added yet another accolade to her growing collection; her turn as HRM most recently earned her the 2015 Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Play! Her fellow costar Richard McCabe, in the role of Prime Minister Harold Wilson, also won a coveted Tony for Best Featured Actor in a Play.

Directed by Stephen Daldry and written by Peter Morgan, this luminous production imagines the private weekly meetings held between Her Majesty and the Prime Minister of the day, leading to some very interesting observations...

The Audience offers a peek behind closed doors

Beginning in 1952 at her ascension to the throne, these conversations have been kept secret, with each party observing an unspoken agreement to never divulge the contents, even to their nearest and dearest. From providing counsel to teasing, agreements to arguments, The Audience is the chance to see inside the upper echelons of power and experience recent British history as you've never seen it before. From young motherhood through to being the great-grandmother of today, Elizabeth has been the constant participant in these meetings, seeing 12 Prime Ministers come and go, at first full of hope, often leaving office disappointed and jaded with experience.

She listens to Harold Wilson confess to his early stage Alzheimer's disease, with Gordon Brown later battling his demons in the face of party revolt, and even the calm John Major reduced to tears in her presence. In return, we see that the Queen can't help but reveal her own life experiences and humanity through these weekly engagements.

This will be Helen Mirren's first appearance on the American stage in 12 years, since her Tony nominated performance in 2002's Dance of Death. Dame Helen has recently been seen on screen in R.E.D 1 & 2, Hitchcock and most notably, The Queen in 2006.

DID YOU KNOW?

Dame Helen has not only played Elizabeth II on screen, she has also portrayed her namesake, Elizabeth I in the 2005 HBO miniseries of the same name! In addition, she has played Cleopatra on stage in London, as well as Queen Charlotte in the Nigel Hawthorne movie, "The Madness of King George.